Edit: I looked up the chances of a house being struck by lightning and for a single strike it is 1 in 200. If I have done the math correctly, three times in four years is exponentially higher. There is a 1 in 8M chance of that happening. Well I have always been unusually lucky.
The weather is weird everywhere but here in Pennsylvania I have a fairly unique problem. At least I think it must be unique although I have no idea how to research the data. We have been hit by lightning strikes on our house three times in the last four years or three times in the four years we have been here. Each time the strike has been pretty obvious, and each time the strike has taken out some piece of electronics, usually at a cost of around $1K to fix.
The latest strike happened at 10:22 in the evening on Monday. The thunderstorm had been raging for a while and we could see the lightning strikes coming toward us and hear the rolling thunder. Multiple strikes in rapid succession and then "Bang!" This time it knocked out our air conditioning or at least some of our air conditioning since we have at least three different systems. This strike hit the main unit, the oldest, outside in our backyard. Since the lightning preceded the quick rise in temperature, we knew pretty quickly that our first floor kitchen, living, and dining room system was kaput. Luckily we were able to get a guy to come out to replace the zapped system.
Now I wonder if I have a lightning rod. Last year lightning hit the phone and television systems and the year before it was a different air conditioning system. I guess we are lucky that our house is stone with a slate roof.
Golly, that's scary. When I lived in Boalsburg there were a few storms that seemed to be right over our house (there was a ridge behind us) and an acquaintance said, of the town named Stormstown, "there's a reason it's called Stormstown."
ReplyDeleteSo you might be in an area that's a little micro-climate due to the local relief.
As to a lightening rod, you might be right. Pre-pandemic, my town's DPW had to do some work on the water pipes in front of my house which required a connection in my basement and I was told my lightening rod needed to be replaced.
Your slate roof may indeed be your safety mechanism...an historic church in the next town was struck by lightning during a big storm the week after the lightning rod was removed from the steeple because renovations were due to begin. The church burnt to the ground.